FCC Laws Regarding SMS Marketing To Change ***Important***

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Effective October 16, 2013 the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) is amending the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) Act of 1991 REQUIRING expressed WRITTEN permission to send “commercial” or “marketing” messages to a mobile phone subscriber. SMS notifications and alerts or links to web content are excluded. This new requirement applies to advertising or promotional messages that contain a call to action, offer, discount, etc.

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In order to conduct SMS Marketing you will now need to follow a double opt-in process or web opt in compliant with the Federal E Sign Act. In which the subscriber is advised unambiguously the following information prior to official opt-in:

I consent to receive SMS messages from [ADVERTISER] at this number. I understand that consent is not a condition of purchase. Reply Y to confirm and E-sign.
Your original opt-in confirmation should be inserted as the second message and the confirmation keyword set to be Y.
We will publish more information on this subject as it comes available after we speak with the Mobile Marketing Association and our Aggregators regarding further explanations and best practices.

SMS Stop Command | Stop Means STOP ALL

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A decision has just been handed down from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), regarding theSMS stop command, which states that all U.S. carriers will now require that an end user receive one final MT, or message terminated message, when opting out of a program or campaign. As a result of this, if an end user is opted in to more than one program or campaign on a short code, ALL opt-out keywords are to be treated as “STOP ALL”. STOP menus also will no longer be allowed.

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This is a change from the old rule which only required carriers to opt the end user out of the specific campaign they are responding to. For example, if Company A is running a campaign on short code 12345, and Company B is also running a campaign on short code 12345, and an end user replies “STOP” to any message sent from Company A, then it USED to be that the end user would only be opted out of Company A’s campaign while they will still receive text messages from Company B on the same short code.

The NEW ruling states that if the end user responds to Company A’s message with “STOP”, then that user is opted out of BOTH Company A’s, and Company B’s campaigns since they are on the same short code, which in this case is 12345.

This change is effective immediately, even though the FCC ruling is officially scheduled to go into effect on October 16, 2013. You can see the full FCC ruling here.